Sunday, April 22, 2012

fading away

there was a period after i returned from kazakhstan in the summer of
2010 that my house was filled with products i bought in kaz. as i
resumed life in the u.s., i would use up my russian/kazakh-labeled
product and replace it with something i bought here, although mrs. noz's
periodic visits home would bring new influxes of cyrillic labels. in
october 2010, i went back to kazakhstan, bringing my mix of u.s. and
kazakhstan-purchased products with me. while i was there whatever i used
up would be replaced with a locally acquired product.

when
all three of us--mrs. noz, noz jr., and i--all finally reached home in december 2010, our house was once again awash in foreign products, this
time including baby products as well. for a while i was used to seeing
the funny foreign labels around the house. but over time, without anyone
thinking about it, those labels were one-by-one replaced with english
ones. the other day, i realized that our house appeared to be free of
foreign labels. it probably had been for some time. i just hadn't been
thinking about it.

after looking around, i now believe the two products pictured
above are the last echoes of our adventures in kazakhstan (at least as
expressed in consumer products) all that's left is my backup deodorant
and a tube of hand cream. in another 16 months, they will probably be
gone too.